Cathie Ryan Farthest Wave CD

 Great theme about waves and the sea.
Cathie Ryan is a top performer of Irish music.
Submitted by grifdan (Quebec City, Canada) 
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 Such a Voice
If there is a more engrossing and beautiful album out this year, I'd be amazed. No naval-gazing song writing, no fascination with unhappiness. Cathie Ryan has an Irish/American voice to die for - perfectly suited for her own lovely compositions and for doing full justice to traditional songs from Ireland, Scotland and England. After two great records as lead singer with Cherish the Ladies, she has just come out with her fourth solo cd. THE FARTHEST WAVE is the second produced by the great John McCusker and both are beautifully buoyed by the many talents of the Rusby clan-John is the husband of the peerless Kate Rusby-and all those at the aptly named Pure Records in Yorkshire. Cathie seems unable to utter anything but the most lovely phrasing when she sings. That would be enough to please any listener. But, here she has forces aplenty assisting her. The guitar work is matchless throughout-especially John Doyle's and Kris Drever's. The multi-instrumental John McCusker brings that beautiful work he's displayed to such great effect on all of Kate Rusby's cds: fiddle, whistles, and cittern. He's also written a great jig and a smashing reel for this collection. Phil Cunningham's accordion has a personality all its own and appears throughout. Backing vocals are splendid-especially Karine Polwart's. The songs are so good that it's difficult to pick favorites-I won't try. Notable, however, is the traditional ROUGH AND ROCKY which Cathie heard originally on Emmylou Harris's great early album, BLUE KENTUCKY GIRL. If you can imagine one of the most beautiful voices in the world singing the following verse from the traditional (and by Dermot Henry), "As the Evening Declines," you may get the idea how great this work is: You can have all your gold, the high king of all metals With soft talk and kisses we'll never want better And the west of a ditch is the best of all settles Glory o, glory, glory when the evening declines Glory o, glory, glory as the evening declines
Submitted by David T. Steere, Jr. (Annapolis, MD, USA)
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